


A Helping Hand

by vienn_peridot



Series: A Two-Spark Problem in Lost Light Relationships [2]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Aftercare, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Fluff, Healing Sex, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Abortion, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Other, Sticky Sexual Interfacing, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, dubcon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-14
Updated: 2014-11-27
Packaged: 2018-02-21 03:57:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2453852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vienn_peridot/pseuds/vienn_peridot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Attempted fill for Kinkmeme Promt (http://tfanonkink.livejournal.com/13205.html?thread=14804629) combined with a lot of gratuitous self-indulgence.<br/>Basically:<br/>Mech A has a shitty heat, nearly dies of embarrassment afterwards and generally fails to cope.<br/>Luckily, A has a friend Mech B, who knows A well enough to see he's not okay, and sets out to fix things. Reassuring A that everything is normal and he's still sexy without the heat. B pampers A until A feels better then they have slow, sweet healing sex.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Burning

**Author's Note:**

> I had Dellessa's fill open in one tab and some Dratchet in another and this is what happened.  
> Because my mind has hitched the train to Smutsville and hasn't been seen since -.-;  
> Strap yourselves in, kids. Hopefully it's gonna hurt.
> 
> ::Comm Speak::

# CHAPTER ONE - Burning

Ratchet onlined slowly, his boot sequence running sluggishly. His frame felt too warm, fans already running at medium speed in an attempt to lower his internal temperature.

_What the slag?_

The final –and abnormal- alerts crossing his HUD made it perfectly clear just what the slag was going on. It was something that hadn’t happened to Ratchet more than a handful of times over the last six million years of war. Now they were at peace, it seemed that things were getting back to normal.

Well, about as normal as they could be aboard the Lost Light, at any rate.

Which probably meant that it was about time for their CMO to go into heat; causing all kinds of merry Pit until he conceived and it was over.

This was NOT happening. Not to him!

Unfortunately, it was.

Ratchet’s systems were already at a slow burn, interfacing hardware online and priming itself for the events to come. ‘Events’ was in the plural sense, because it took more than one round of interfacing for a Cybertronian to quicken even if they _were_ in heat.

A careful invent filtered past sensitive Medical Chemoreceptors verified that his frame was already producing the aerosol compounds which marked a mech in heat and advertising their availability to others nearby. There was no way for Ratchet to self-test his EM field, but he was fairly confident that by now it would be buzzing with reluctant arousal.

Pushing himself up, Ratchet felt his valve callipers give an involuntary ripple at the change in position. Oh slag, he was further in than he realised.

::Rodimus::

::What’s up, Ratchet?::

Screwing up the last of his courage, Ratchet forced himself to say the words, wishing with every molecule of his being that it wasn’t happening. That this was a nightmarish recharge cycle he’s soon awaken from.

::I need your help. Medical Code 318-Alpha-6. . . Uh, it’s for me.::

::Medical Co-::

There was uncomprehending silence for all of two klicks as Rodimus audibly dragged the appropriate memory file to the forefront of his processors. Then an entirely different kind of silence filled the open commlink, broken only by the humming of Ratchet’s fans until Rodimus reset his vocaliser loudly.

::Medical Code 318-Alpha-6? Are you sure Ratchet?::

The Captain sounded strangely reluctant

::If there’s someone else you’d rather, I mean not that I’m not happy to, I just thought there might be someone on the crew you’d rather spend this with?::

Slagging _fantastic_.

Ratchet knew that he wasn’t the most attractive mech on board the Lost Light, but was he _really_ so unappealing that even after calling a MC-318-A6 Rodimus was _still_ trying to wriggle out of it? As if the prospect of a few days of no-strings-attached fragging with a mech in heat wasn’t enough to counterbalance the fact that the mech in heat was _Ratchet?_

::Nobody I can trust not to run their vocalisers about it.:: Ratchet said sourly, feeling his interface panels warm at a frightening speed.

::Ok, it’s cool.::

Why did Rodimus sound so slagging subdued? The mech’s libido was notorious!

::I’ll tell Ultra Magnus what we’re dealing with and he can invent a cover story for the next few days. Ah, you’ll want First Aid in charge of the Medbay, right?::

::Yes. Please.:: Ratchet’s voice was strained. He started to squirm despite himself, seeking friction against his valve cover to ease the growing itch.

::Ok Ratch’ I’ll sort it out.::

Clicking the background meant that Rodimus was already reorganising the rosters, covering them both.

::I’ll grab us some energon and stuff on the way over, be there in a couple of breems. Hang in there, ok?::

Fighting the urge to ask Rodimus to hurry, to _get this over with_ , Ratchet cut the commlink and lay back on his berth, letting his helm fall back to the padding with a thump.

What a Pit-forsaken _glitch_ of a situation.

Ratchet could feel the altered protocols steadily infiltrating his consciousness, adjusting his priorities. It became increasingly difficult to focus on anything besides the liquid heat building behind his valve cover as time slowed to a crawl. It felt like forever since he’s spoken to Rodimus, the maddening tingle of lubricant production overtaking his entire awareness.

Distantly, he heard someone moan. Was that his voice? He wasn’t sure.

A fresh trickle of fluid across the sensors of his valve triggered his autonomics, red panelling of his interface cover snapping back into Ratchet’s pelvic array so fast the vibrations of the movement tingled through already-primed sensor nodes. The Medic moaned, back arching up off the berth. Conscious thought receded before the onslaught of sensory data assaulting him from a frame in overdrive. It was too much and not enough, riding the maddeningly fine line between arousal and agony.

His frame burned, his valve was so _empty_. He needed. . . needed. . . something, _anything_ to ease that Primus-forsaken ache between his thighs.

So hot. So, so empty. Dazedly, the Medic sought out the source of his problems.

Red-plated hands drifted downwards, moving quickly over the utilitarian angles of standard Medic Frame armour and skimming through the air just over pelvic plating that was almost hot enough to damage the finely-crafted instruments of his profession. Delicately, one forefinger traced the outer rim of his spike housing. The structure remained firmly recessed. As it would the entire time the heat dominated Ratchet’s processors.

No relief to be found there, so wandering hands moved lower.

 _There_.

Ratchet’s thumbs barely grazed the outer lips of his valve, the feedback from the hypersensitive array sending small snowstorms of static across his visual input.

Yes, there was the problem.

His valve.

It was empty.

But he couldn’t solve the problem with his own hands.

He’d learned that the hard way. Right after he’d received the final set of full Medical upgrades Ratchet had blown out half the sensors and almost wiped his own cortex by self-servicing during a heat.

 _That_ was the kind of mistake that stuck with you, no matter what happened.

Gritting his denta, Ratchet sat up on the berth just as the door to his Habsuite dinged the horrible little alarm that meant a Command Override was being used to unlock it.

Rodimus entered and re-locked the door behind him. It looked as if he was holding his vents. In his dazed state Ratchet couldn’t figure out why the red-and-gold mech would be holding his vents. However, before he could fumble the words together to ask, his valve clamped down on nothing, interior walls rubbing together under the press of straining callipers.

The involuntary act stroked internal node clusters together, setting up a frustrating feedback wave that dragged an embarrassing whimper from the Medic’s vocaliser. He crumpled as far forward as his bulky frame would allow, clamping his thighs together in desperate search of relief.

“Here, Ratch. Drink this.”

Oh. He’d almost forgotten Rodimus was there.

Gentle hands lifted Ratchet’s chin from where it had dropped to his chest and held a cube to his mouth, pressing insistently against his lower lip when he didn’t immediately drink.

A cautious taste informed him that it was thick, refreshing Medical-Grade coolant usually reserved for mechs experiencing their heat cycle.

When he was done, Rodimus subspaced the empty container and took Ratchet’s helm in his hands, gazing seriously into feverishly bright optics. Ratchet onlined his optics, unaware they’d shut off while he eagerly consumed the coolant cube.

“Ratch, are you absolutely sure about this?”  There isn’t anyone else you’d rather

“Just do it.” The low growl was barely understandable as speech as Ratchet writhed in the Captain’s grip.

When it didn’t look like Rodimus was going to move, the desperate Medic abandoned his pride and begged, desperate for relief.

“ _Please_.”


	2. Sparks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rodimus helps the CMO through his heat.  
> HERE THERE BE SMUT

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my first ever attempt at both spike-and-valve interfacing AND spark sex.  
> I would advise against reading this in a public place, or in areas where there is significant danger of brushfires and/or water rationing is currently in force.

# CHAPTER TWO - Sparks

Ratchet groaned, rolling his hips back into the thrusting spike which was still pressurised and driving gamely into him. He’d lost count of the overloads some time ago, not that he’d really been coherent enough to count by the time they’d started.

It was nearly over now. In another overload or two Ratchet’s gestation chamber would be full enough for the mating drive to shift his focus from valve to spark. There was one small fragment of his processor left in which the Medic was still aware of himself, and that little piece was desperately hoping it would only take one merge for a newspark to form. Ratchet _definitely_ didn’t want multiple merges on top of the knowledge that this impulsive youngling had seen the CMO while he was a lust-drunk mess, writhing and begging for a spike.

He already had _quite_ enough embarrassment to be getting on with, thanks very much!

Luckily for Ratchet, the aphrodisiac effects of his EM field and the chemical cocktail his frame was producing ensured that the red-and-gold Speedster had no problem at all in keeping up with the demands of the heat-wracked mech. Even now charge was climbing steadily between them, even though the Medics’ valve was so well-lubricated that Rodimus probably wasn’t getting a great deal of sensation as his spike slid easily though the slippery mesh, striking Ratchet’s most receptive nodes with each surging movement.

Staticky open-mouthed moans could be heard clearly over the racket of two sets of cooling fans working overtime and the steady rumble of Rodimus’ high-performance engine. Four strong fingers slid between the flared armour plating of Ratchet’s hips, his own hands fisting in the berth covering as the intruders fumbled slightly, searching urgently for sensitive cabling Rodimus had been discovered earlier when they’d been in a different position.

The Speedster’s other hand was anchored firmly on the utilitarian angles of Ratchet’s pelvic armour, pulling him back hard into the Captain’s thrusts, guiding him over the spike that stroked his burning valve in glorious, wonderful ways.

Golden fingers found their target, rubbing over a particularly dense cluster of redundant nerve circuitry possessed by Medic frames that could be cannibalised for the benefit of their patients. Redundant they may be, unresponsive they were most definitely _not_. Ratchet arched and gasped at the stimulation, slamming himself back into Rodimus with enough force to shift their intertwined frames back several inches.

Yes; there. Right _there_. _Oh_ _Primus yes right THERE_.

Electric pleasure shot from the fingers jammed deep in the Medic’s neural wiring and straight to his valve, triggering an overload that crashed through his frame with all the merciless subtlety of an avalanche.

Ratchet bucked uncontrollably, engine whining with exertion while lightning danced over his plating. Vocaliser shorting out on a scream, he surged up to his knees.

Rodimus caught him, strong arms wrapping around boxy red-and-white torso hard enough to leave scratches and paint transfers on both mechs while the Speedster snarled his own release into Ratchet’s audio, hips jerking erratically as his spike shot deep into the saturated, desperately clenching valve.

That overload did it.

Ratchet’s overburdened gestation chamber could only siphon up half of the nanite-rich fluid Rodimus’ spike ejected within him. The red-and-white mech felt the opening to his gestation chamber transform closed, containing the molten liquid for the next stage of his heat. Leftover nanites joined the mess of pastel pink lubricant oozing out from around the Speedster’s spike and running down white thighs, giving them a silvery sheen.

As his cooling systems laboured Ratchet felt the hopeless, unquenchable burn of arousal faded from his valve, leaving it feeling sloppy and stretched from the outrageous amount of interfacing his heat cycle had driven them to. Primus up a pole, his equipment hadn’t felt like this since Med School!

“F-fi-final s-stage.” Ratchet gasped hoarsely as his thoracic armour unlocked without conscious direction, glass panes tessellating and shifting against red-and-gold armour as they attempted to fold aside.

“’Kay” The Captain mumbled against Ratchet’s shoulder, light tremors running through his limbs.

It appeared that even Rodimus’ legendary berth stamina had its limits. Under any other circumstances, the CMO would have found this hilarious.

Ratchet’s frame was limp from exertion, yet to recover from that last overload which had his valve _still_ sending pleasant tingles through his neural net. He felt Rodimus withdraw; nanite-streaked lubricant coursing out of Ratchet’s overused equipment as the spike retreated.

The Medic felt himself turned and laid back on the berth with such gentle care he wanted to smack Rodimus upside the helm for treating him like he was some fragile little civilian frame, but that urge was a whisper in a windstorm in comparison to the inferno that was building in his spark chamber.

Ratchet’s white armour and glass were littered with red and gold paint transfers which created an attractive pattern as the underlying armour fractured into a mosaic along transformation seams, moving smoothly aside. A secondary transformation sequence brought Ratchet’s his spark chamber to the surface, within easy reach of anyone who felt like pressing their life force to his.

Rodimus’ faceplates were bathed in the light of Ratchet’s brightly pulsing spark. Eerie shadows danced over the Captain’s features, obscuring his reaction to the unprotected miniature sun blazing with a silver-shot turquoise light before him.

The red-and-gold mech knelt astride Ratchet’s hips; enamel marred with a truly obscene number of white scrapes. The activities which had created the paint transfers had filled Ratchet’s gestation chamber so full the fluid trapped inside had no space to slosh. The nanites locked within him simply shifted and eddied with internal currents as the Medic moaned, reaching up towards the mech hovering over him.

Armour locks clicked and golden plating shifted, Rodimus baring his brilliant white-gold spark as he gently grasped Ratchet’s reaching hands. The Medic offlined his optics at the sensation of fingers against his own as they were guided around a narrow waist as the mech above him leaned forward to press their forehelms together.

Clever red fingers slid up Rodimus’ spinal column, seeking the large gaps where spoiler met backplating. Ratchet found them and slid inside, pulling a fresh surge of arousal into the Captain’s EM field as he played gently over the sensors hidden just out of sight.

The Speedster moaned, steadfastly keeping his distance from Ratchet’s open armour and heat-swollen spark. Frustrated, the Medic dug his fingers in deeper, feeling the fast pulsing of Rodimus’ energon lines against delicate sensors as a pounding torment of lust. When this action failed to bring the other spark within reach of his own Ratchet began increasing the pressure he exerted, past the point of pleasure and up into the realms of pain as he desperately sought to bring their open chestplates together.

He could _still_ feel Rodimus resisting the silent demands, nuzzling against his white chevron cheekily, undulating their combined EM fields in sensuous waves. The shifting vibrations of the EM fields surged against Ratchet’s exposed spark, teasing him until he surrendered and ceased clawing into the Captain’s back.

The red-and-white frame writhed uncontrollably against the berth, little tendrils of energy licking out from his blazing spark as it searched for what was required to fulfil the demands of the heat. The bright, silvery turquoise reflected oddly off Rodimus’ golden chest armour, tarnishing the shadows between sections of retracted plating.

“ _Please!_ ” Ratchet whined, denta bared in a grimace of pure frustration.

“Sorry,” Rodimus sounded contrite, field firming in apology. “Hang on, I’ve got you.”

Finally, Rodimus began lowering himself, the movement distracting Ratchet from the horrified realisation that he’d just _begged_ the younger mech to fuck his spark.

The Speedster took his time, sliding the pleated panels of their chest armour so they interlocked properly instead of risking injury by hurrying and snagging delicate seams. In his current state, the slow creep of sensation was as much of a torture to the Medic as if Rodimus had taken an energon whip to his bared protoform. Ratchet clumsily pulled his hands from their playground amongst neural wiring to press them flat against the plating of Rodimus’ back as the red-and-gold mech shifted above him, moving cautiously despite the urgency with which Ratchet’s field pulled at his.

When the final pieces of white and gold chestplates interlocked in a perfectly complimentary mosaic, the thrill of it snapped through Ratchet’s heat-fogged awareness like the blast from an orbital cannon. His optics blazed back online, staring sightlessly up into Rodimus’ as he gasped brokenly.

Ratchet didn’t have the spare processor power to process the look on the Speedster’s faceplates, all he could do was fight to stay aware in the flood of erotic liberation that was overtaking him.

His ordeal would soon be over.

The blazing, desire-swollen turquoise spark released questing tendrils of silver-blue plasma, searching for the other spark that would bring it completion and relief. A tingle of scorching electrons drew them in the right direction, the distinctive resonance of _Rodimus_ answering with hesitant care which made the Medic snort at the misplaced concern.

As soon as the first wisp of white-gold brushed against turquoise blue, the concluding event of the merge was inevitable. Despite the ample experience in this form of interfacing both mechanisms had amassed over their lifetimes, there was no skill in how their sparks crashed together in a frenzy of lust.

Both frames seized, locking together in static tableau while blinding blue-white-gold-green light poured from the few hairline gaps visible between their interlocked chestplates, sparklight spilling through glass and over golden armour in benediction.

Coronas merged in a maelstrom of liquid energy to rival colliding supernovas, the urgent need to merge and _create_ communicated from turquoise to pale gold as fleeting sensations, surface thoughts and emotions pooled between Speedster and Medic.

Ratchet had no control over what he shared with the younger mech. Likewise; Rodimus couldn’t choose what the Medic saw during the sparkmerge. Under the influence of Ratchet’s heat both mechs drowned in pure sensuality, sparks moving to create new life from molten bliss.

Dimly, the silver-and-turquoise spark that was Ratchet thought he detected concern and admiration directed towards him; his request for a clarification was lost to the inferno as hard on the heels of that brief sensation came the memory of _precisely_ how his valve had felt while spasming in overload around Rodimus’ spike during their previous rounds of interfacing.

The two sparks continued to trade brief flickers of memory and sensation, each exchange deepening the generative merge. Charge skyrocketed within their systems, surrounding the frames intertwined on Ratchet’s berth with a shifting aurora of free electrons. This accidental lightshow responded to the tidal pull of the erotic dance taking place in the conjoined chest cavities of Ratchet and Rodimus with rippling patterns that went unseen and unrecorded.

Gasped nonsense sounds that were more than half static coincided with the red-and-gold mech plummeting into overload, driven past the illusion of restraint by the intense sense-memory of what a talented and worshipful glossa could do to a Medic’s hands.

The energy discharge from the white-gold spark’s overload _slammed_ into turquoise, sending Ratchet into an overload so formidable his vocaliser burned out halfway through a scream. The berth shook beneath the pair as both engines roared into freefall, a supernova of purest ecstasy exploding outward from their conjoined sparks to overwhelm processors and send them spinning into protective shutdown.

 

~~~~~

 

Ratchet onlined in a haze of low energy and coolant alerts, horribly confused and feeling more thoroughly fragged than he’d felt since. . . well, if he had to be totally honest, since that last time with Pharma.

What in the Pit had _happened_ last night?

Slowly scraping together stray threads of cognitive function, Ratchet could feel a warm frame snuggled up to his back and an arm that was (supposedly) attached to that frame under his head like a hard, warm pillow. Whoever it was possessed a distinctive sports car engine, the powerful pistons currently firing in a gentle purr which resonated through the Medic’s chassis in an incredibly soothing manner.

If it wasn’t for the insistent demands for energon –and more importantly _coolant_ \- that were popping up on his HUD, Ratchet would have quite happily slid back down into recharge to the sound of that engine. He _loved_ powerful engines. _Especially_ the high-performance speedster ones.

How the slag had his coolant gotten that low? That never happened during a hard night of interfacing.

Unless. . .

Oh **SLAG**.

His recent memory cache updated in a rush, files becoming increasingly more corrupted and incomplete as the timestamps progressed from when he’d commed Rodimus. There was only one cursory marker of a spark merge, which meant. . .

He turned his attention inward, focusing on the readings from his spark chamber and gestation tank, probing gently with his EM field.

Yup, there was no mistaking it.

Ratchet was sparked.

He’d gone into heat, called an MC-318-A6 and gotten sparked up by Rodimus Prime, the young and impulsive Captain of the Lost Light.

Right now Ratchet would have fragged Unicron himself if it meant a hole would appear to swallow him up.

How was he _ever_ going to live this down?!

Even if neither of them ever breathed a word about it –and Rodimus couldn’t without bringing down the combined wrath of both Ratchet _and_ rule-abiding Ultra Magnus down upon himself- Ratchet wasn’t sure he’d ever to be able to look the other mech in the face again.

Not with what Rodimus would have seen and heard over the last orn.

_Certainly_ not with the appallingly wanton way Ratchet had humiliated himself during the heat.

A change in airflow over his chevron startled Ratchet into onlining his optics suspiciously, just in time to see a cube of medical-grade coolant placed within easy reach of his outflung hand.

“I heard your systems cycle up.” Rodimus’ voice was quiet and rough. “Figured you could probably use this.”

“Thanks.” Ratchet’s voice sounded terrible, his HUD politely informing him that self-repair hand only restored 35% of a completely blown vocaliser.

Oh _wonderful_.

Well, they’d both put their vocalisers through one Pit of a workout if Ratchet’s memory files were anywhere near accurate.

Accepting the cube, Ratchet moved away from the warm frame of his berth partner and sat up, slowly sipping the thick coolant. It felt heavenly against raw throat tubing, autonomous processes diverting it to the correct holding tank within his frame where his systems all but snatched it up. Consuming half the cube took care of the Low Coolant alerts on his HUD, leaving Ratchet staring into the syrupy fluid left in the cube and contemplating the awkward fact that Rodimus was between himself and access to Energon.

As if Rodimus had somehow developed Soundwave’s ability to read processors, a slightly battered gold-enamelled hand appeared within Ratchet’s field of vision with a cube of mid-grade balanced on the palm. The Medic took it wordlessly, downing the rest of the coolant in one draught before starting in on the Energon.

“So,” Rodimus sounded extremely unsure of himself, “You gonna be ok?”

“I’ll be fine.” Ratchet said hoarsely, “You know I’m not going to keep the protospark. Don’t have time to deal with another sparkling, not with the way you lot keep getting yourselves slagged up all the time.”

Ratchet knew he should finish the energon but he suddenly had no desire to consume anything. Besides, the low energon warnings were mostly gone from his HUD. Lowering the mostly-full cube to his lubricant-stained lap, the Medic stared at it with unseeing optics.

“I understand.” Rodimus didn’t sound disappointed, simply accepting of the situation. “Don’t know how you put up with us, some orns.”

“Experience” Ratchet replied dryly, reflecting on some of the slag he’d had to deal with from certain Autobots during the war.

“Finish that cube or ‘Aid will get on your case.” Rodimus said, nudging Ratchet with an elbow.

Reluctantly, the Medic raised the cube to his lips and drained it dry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok. There we are. Two more firsts claimed by this fic.  
> Brace yourselves for some serious angst and unhealthy behaviours from Ratchet once the Fresher Flu has stopped battering me.


	3. What Comes After

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ratchet attempts to deal with expected and unexpected consequences of his heat.
> 
> Playlist for this fic [HERE](http://adhesivesandscrap.tumblr.com/post/101892263871/a-helping-hand-ch-3-playlist)

# CHAPTER THREE – What Comes After

The biggest relief for Ratchet in the days following his heat was that First Aid and Ambulon weren’t treating him any differently. Both understood the situation and went on as normal, just as trained medics should. The rest of the crew were completely clueless, so to have his fellow medics acting as if everything was Situation Normal was immensely soothing to his slightly frazzled nervecircuits.

Ok, so _maybe_ First Aid was asking just a _few_ more technical questions about the ins-and-outs of running a Medbay, but that was about it.

It was dealing with Rodimus that was threatening to implode Ratchet’s neural circuitry.

The Captain of the Lost Light seemed to become absolutely _convinced_ that his CMO was about as mentally robust as a thin sheet of solidified Dihydrogen Oxide. The younger mech treated Ratchet with overt caution for about a week after the ‘incident’, after which Ratchet had cracked, verbally ripping the young idiot’s helm off and punting it across the galaxy.

Now Rodimus was avoiding him unless it was absolutely necessary, which suited Ratchet _perfectly_.

The Captain would sort himself out eventually.

In the meantime Ratchet could try to deal with a consequence of the heat that he hadn’t expected in the slightest.

Apparently, cycling up from recharge next to another frame once –just _once_ \- had reminded Ratchet of just how badly he missed doing so. It was the combination of the gentle hum of another’s systems, the soothing warmth of a frame near at hand and an EM Field against his own all combined to provide the Medic with incontrovertible proof that _he_ _wasn’t alone_. It was something Ratchet wanted and needed far more than he was willing to admit.

Especially not to himself.

At least this time he’d anticipated the difficulty he would have with ignoring his libido after the heat. Rodimus’ skilled attentions had reawakened his interface drive with a vengeance. Much to his frustration his usual method of suffocating it under a pile of busywork simply wasn’t an option now there was Ambulon and First Aid to take over shifts in the Medbay.

At least he still had all the interface toys he’d collected over the years, happily including some of Wheeljack’s more . . . _creative_ inventions. So once the dull ache of vigorous use faded from his valve Ratchet dragged his ‘toy chest’ out and became reacquainted with its contents.

Unfortunately, toys could only do so much.

As the orns wore on, Ratchet found himself experiencing increasing difficulty with shutting down when it came time to enter recharge. He was loath to use sedatives to fix the problem, given how easy they were to abuse. Whenever he lay down and offlined his optics the _really_ unhelpful part of his processor liked to chip in with memories from his days in Med School; specifically some high-definition replays of of his nicer frag buddies and that one strange roommate who’d insisted right from night one that they recharge curled up together in a pile of red-and-white plating while never once making a move to interface.

Perhaps _that_ was where he’d developed this peculiar craving.

Not that it was _bad_ to want to snuggle up to someone else to sleep, it just didn’t match up with the rest of his personality at all.

Every other day now Ratchet would find himself at Swerve’s after his shift, drinking plain engex and listening to whoever felt like blathering at him, entertaining the vague hope that he’d be able to get a decent recharge and maybe a less lonely berth, even if just for that night.

The tipping point was hard to define.

Even going over his memory files frame-by-frame it was impossible for Ratchet to pinpoint the precise time and place when he’d stopped denying reality and just accepted that he’d never get a decent frag or find someone to be a little less lonely with.

It could have been when he considered asking Rung to re-create the sleeping arrangements of his old Med School roommate.

Or when he realised that yes, he actually _was_ desperate enough to hope Whirl was drunk enough to drag him off into an empty room for a few hours.

Whichever it was; that was when Ratchet gave up.

He stayed in his quarters except when he was on shift or (more rarely now) at Swerve’s.

Mechs tried to coax him out a few times, invitations he mostly managed to wriggle out. His excused were flimsy but thankfully nobody pushed him too hard. Paperwork was the more reliable one. Saying he needed to catch up on all the recharge he’d missed during the war worked too, but only if it was someone who had actually _seen_ the way he’d pushed himself back then. When the excuses didn’t work he endured for the shortest possible amount of before escaping back to blessed peace and quiet.

He knew that it wasn’t healthy, but he didn’t want to inflict his sour mood on mecha who didn’t deserve it.

The worst unavoidable social event came when Rewind and First Aid ganged up on Ratchet, baiting their trap with a refresher marathon of As The Kitchen Sinks.

With those two pooling their resources there was no possible way for Ratchet to decline without risking an aft-kicking, despite the fact that he’d probably seen every episode of the popular soap at _least_ a dozen times even though he’d never once managed to catch them all in order.

So here he was. Jammed into the corner of the movie room which furthest from the door. With what looked like have the crew between him and the exit, a very excited Tailgate for company and a bowl of broken-up rust sticks to nibble on while watching the show.

At least Rodimus wasn’t there.

Not having to deal with _that_ awkwardness was an immense relief.

The couch-thing was comfortable and supported his tired frame nicely. In between calling greetings to mechs as the arrived, Tailgate was asking Ratchet some surprisingly intelligent (For a Cybertronian) questions about Soap Operas and Earth-Derived entertainment in general Answering them was a good way to pass the time as they waited for Rewind to start the show. It soothed some of the hollow ache inside Ratchet had been steadfastly ignoring and he felt lighter with it gone, relaxing into the camaraderie with increasing cheer.

He’d _almost_ been about to admit that this had been a good idea when the door opened to admit Drift and Rodimus.

_Oh **no**_.

Ratchet nearly bit down on his own finger instead of the segment of rust stick he was holding to his lips as his optics locked on the pair of graceful Speedster frames like a stunned rabbit in the headlights of an 18-wheel truck.

_Oh no._

_Fraggit, no!_

Rodimus hadn’t noticed Ratchet yet; tucked away in the corner as he was, more than half-hidden behind the frames of everyone else present. Drift was in the lead, moving with the fluid grace that always conjured wistful, improbable images in the Medic’s processor on the rare occasions he caught himself with enough free time to daydream of what might have been. The Swordsmech was looking back over his shoulder, talking to Rodimus and paying scant attention to where he was going as they picked their way across the room.

_Oh no._

_No seats here._

**_Please_ ** _go away!_

The CMO tried to wrench his attention back to Tailgate and the rust stick slowly dissolving on his glossa. It tasted stale and bland, completely unlike the pieces he’d eaten so far. The Speedsters were apparently deep in conversation, drawing steadily closer while Ratchet desperately pretended he hadn’t noticed them. They weren’t there; the Captain and 3IC were elsewhere on the ship. They were definitely NOT in the room, drawing too close for Ratchet’s peace of mind.

_If I ignore them they’ll go away, right?_

Drift was probably pelting the Captain with a million questions about the night’s viewing programme, if Tailgate’s reaction could be counted as a representative sample.

Snorting at the idea of Tailgate comprising a representative sample of _anything_ , Ratchet finally managed to drag his attention away from the pair of speedsters and back to answering Tailgate, picking through their snack container for a piece of rust stick with lots of coating. Apparently not noticing –or simply ignoring- Ratchet’s lapse in attention, Tailgate repeated his last question and waited for his seating companion to gather his scattered wits and reply.

“Ratchet can probably answer your questions better than me,” A familiar voice close at hand sent ice through Ratchet’s lines and his hand stilled briefly in the bowl of candy. “It was a pretty popular habit for mecha laid up in the Medbay on Earth to marathon old episodes of this show to kill time. He’s probably seen the entire series a couple dozen times by now.”

_Oh slag._

“Mind if we sit here, Tailgate?” Rodimus asked, waving at the patch of clear floor in front of the couch where Ratchet and the minibot were sitting. “We’re a bit late, all the seats are taken.”

_No! Go away!_

“Sure! It’s no problem.” Tailgate said cheerily as horror engulfed Ratchet. “Just don’t hog the rust sticks. Ratchet looks like he’ll disable your arms if you try to.”

Ratchet hastily tried to compose his features into something less murderously distraught and more generally cranky. Before he could formulate a response to the outrageous suggestion Rodimus sat himself neatly on the floor in front of Tailgate’s dangling pedes, leaving Drift to arrange himself and his swords in the remaining free floor space before Ratchet.

If this had happened a month or two ago, the CMO would have definitely appreciated the fine view his position afforded him.

Now he just felt sick.

“If he does then you two get stuck on hand-feeding duty. You wouldn’t want us to starve to death would you?” Rodimus cast a roguish grin at Tailgate, who grabbed a piece of rust stick and threw it at the Captain. “Besides, I think keeping his mouth full is the only way we’re going to get Drift to shut up long enough for us to see the show.”

“That isn’t true, Rodimus.” The white speedster said evenly, pulling a box from one of his subspace pockets. “Besides, I brought some snacks to add to the community pile.”

Drift pulled a box from subspace while Ratchet reset his optics stupidly; ignoring Rodimus’ hunt for the stray piece of rust stick Tailgate had thrown at him. Ratchet stared blankly at the white mech seated at his feet, desperately trying to unravel the situation into something less than a nightmare.

“What did you bring?” Ratchet asked reluctantly, as some response was obviously expected and neither Tailgate nor Rodimus seemed willing to respond.

“Something Wing taught me how to make.” Drift said with a disarming smile, folding the lid of the box back and offering up the contents for the Medic’s inspection. “He seemed to think I needed a constructive hobby.”

Wishing desperately that the box contained highgrade instead of lollies, Ratchet dutifully leaned forward and inspected the weirdly-shaped chunks of gelled energon inside. They didn’t resemble anything which he was familiar with, but he _could_ make some rough guesses about possible flavours based on the energon treats he did know.

“I’ve . . . never seen anything like them before.” The CMO admitted, vocalising the first charitable reaction that came into his processor.

Ratchet couldn’t exactly come out and say that he’d prefer enough engex to blot out the excruciatingly embarrassing memory dumps being triggered by the sight of Rodimus’ hands or the way the Captain's chestplates reflected the light.

Not with Drift sitting there wearing a shy little half-smile that made the Medic’s spark twitch uneasily in its chamber.

“These were all recipes invented in New Crystal City. This batch didn’t set properly but they should still taste alright.” Drift explained, selecting an opaque mid-green lump with a darker green layer on top. “Here, I think you might like this one.”

Tailgate and Rodimus were suddenly fighting over who had control over the bowl of rust sticks, leaving Ratchet unable to do anything except mutely accept the slightly squashy thing from Drift and put it in his mouth. The swordsmech watched him intently, obviously waiting for his reaction.

He didn’t have long to wait.

As soon as the first fragments of data filtered in from the chemoreceptors in his glossa, Ratchet offlined his optics to cut distractions. It had been a long, long time since he’d had the opportunity to try anything new; especially something new that was _this good_. The war had put a serious crimp in the Medic’s ability to indulge his hedonistic side and the struggle to rebuild Cybertron made it hard for him to justify indulging himself.

Everything was pushed to the bottom of Ratchet’s priority trees so he could focus on enjoying this perfect moment. The feeling of Drift’s EM Field brushing politely against his own as he sought the Medic’s reaction and the taste of the tacky lolly as it slowly melted under the action of his oral solvents.

Ratchet forgot his empty berth, his shame, the very room around him as he concentrated on soaking in as much of the flavour as he could. It was rich without being overpowering, flooding through him with all the colour and sensation that seemed to have been leached from his existence since that _abysmal_ heat cycle.

As he swallowed the last traces of Drift’s gift, Ratchet discovered that he was humming with pleasure. It was very quiet, nigh inaudible unless you were paying very close attention.

The last time he’d caught himself making a sound like this had been. . .

_. . . Seated in Rodimus’ lap, the speedster’s spike filling Ratchet perfectly as the hips below his slammed upward. Brief pressure of fluid hitting the ceiling of his valve before the uptake to his gestation tank kicks in. Suction around the first two fingers of his right hand, giddy froth of his own overload receding back into the general burn in his equipment, vocaliser and engine purring. . ._

The lustre faded from the world again as swiftly as it had been restored.

Ratchet’s optics onlined with a _snap_ of electrical current.

The pleased smile illuminating Drift’s faceplates nearly blinded Ratchet as he sought to shake off the darkness conjured by his memory dump. Thoroughly embarrassed by the twin forces of a lapse in his stoic façade _and_ the memory replay, Ratchet couldn’t look at either of the speedsters. Pretending he wasn’t terrified of what he’d see on their faces, he fixed his optics somewhere in their vicinity without looking directly at them.

“That was really good, kid.” The CMO’s voice was slightly unsteady, but nobody seemed to notice.

“I think that’s the first time I’ve ever seen you look happy!” Tailgate sounded astonished, beckoning at the swordsmech to hand the lollies over. “Quick, give him another one, Drift!”

Drift beamed and held the box out for Tailgate, who passed another green lump to Ratchet and chose a pale orange blob for himself. Rodimus was crunching away on a piece of rust stick, watching the other three mechs interact with an unreadable look on his faceplates. Ratchet’s fuel tank roiled and his desire to flee redoubled when he caught sight of it; the Captain’s optics crinkling briefly at him before sliding away to focus on something else.

“ALRIGHT, QUIET IN THE CHEAP SEATS! SHOW’S STARTING!” Sunstreaker bellowed, expertly crushing the babble of conversation filling the room into an expectant hush.

Desperately wishing himself somewhere – _anywhere-_ else, Ratchet resigned himself to an exceptionally uncomfortable evening. Rewind cued up the first episode, the iconic theme music of As The Kitchen Sinks flowing out to fill the room.


	4. Let Sleeping Medics Lie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Drift is having one of 'those' days and gets an unexpected comm.  
> Next time Rodimus asks him for a favor he'll probably say no.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is massive and I have run out of patience with it.

# CHAPTER FOUR – Let Sleeping Medics Lie

::Drift, I know your shift just finished, but I need you to do me a favour::

Rodimus’ unexpected comm stopped the Swordsmech dead in his tracks. He glared at thin air, hoping Rodimus was watching the cameras. He _really_ wanted to decline. It had been a frustrating shift and had spent the entire day dealing with a bored, unusually hyperactive Whirl with one hand while attempting to placate Ultra Magnus with the other.

Coming on top of this morning’s session in the training room, all Drift wanted to do was head straight to his quarters and become one with his berth.

_No. I’m tired. Slag off and let me get some recharge._

Rodimus was always asking for favours these days, usually involving semi-pointless trips to the Medbay. The main problem was that he _knew_ Drift wouldn’t say no unless the request was something outrageous, and Drift’s definition of ‘outrageous’ was so vastly different from the rest of the Autobot-aligned crewmembers that Rodimus knew he could get Drift to do pretty much anything he asked.

The slagger had been taking rather shameless advantage of this since his weird falling-out with the CMO. He was probably trying to avoid projectile wrenches by using Drift as a go-between until things with Ratchet calmed down.

Heaving a long-suffering sigh through his vents, Drift resigned himself to the inevitable and activated the two-way option for the comm channel.

::What is it?::

::Swerve just contacted me. He wants to close up for the night but Ratchet’s fallen asleep at a corner table and Swerve didn’t notice until just now. You’re the only one awake who’s strong enough to get Ratchet back to his habsuite.::

The desperate entreaty in the Captain’s comm-voice allowed Drift to access a memory file containing the _precise_ variety of pleading turbopuppy optics Rodimus would be using on him if they were having this discussion face-to-face.

Wait; did he say _Ratchet?!_

Before he’d fully processed the identity of the guilty party keeping Swerve up well past closing time, Drift’s pedes had changed direction and he found himself heading towards the bar.

::You’re _sure_ it’s Ratchet?::

It wouldn’t hurt to double-check. This _was_ rather out of character for the CMO. Ratchet _never_ let himself get so overcharged he couldn’t make it back to his habsuite.

::Yeah, I’m sure.:: Rodimus sounded weird. Guilty? Unhappy? He’d never heard this tone from the self-assured mech before. ::Please . . . Just go easy on him, would ya? He’s had a hard time lately.::

Drift’s day just kept getting weirder and weirder.

By now he half-expected that he simply experiencing a particularly warped bunch of memory defrags.

If he was, he’d wake up from recharge any moment now.

 _Any_ moment now. . .

No, apparently not.

::I’ll take care of it.:: There was no way in the Pit Drift was going to let someone –namely Ultra Magnus- lecture Ratchet for this ::And of _course_ I will! He used to be Pharma’s mentor, for Primus’ sake! What happened at Delphi probably hurt him a lot more than he lets on.::

::Yeah. Delphi.:: Rodimus sounded subdued. ::Thanks, Drift. I owe you one.::

::Pay me back next time we make planetfall. Drift out.::

By now Drift had reached the door to Swerve’s establishment. Stopping outside, he took a long moment to physically and mentally steady himself by taking several deep, calming invents.

When he felt that he had his irritation at Rodimus and life in general firmly under control, he pushing open the door and went inside.

The bar was immaculate, Swerve having already completed the end-of-day clean up. The only part that wasn’t spotless was anything within arms’ reach of something that was definitely a recharging Ratchet.

Drift didn’t blame the bartender one bit for his caution.

It wasn’t wise to startle an unconscious Medic, _especially_ one who had spent six million years serving in a borderline-genocidal civil war.

“Thanks for coming, Drift. He’s over there.” Swerve waved towards the small table, which was mostly filled by the red-and-white frame slumped over it. “He’s never done that before. Didn’t even know he _could_ recharge, just thought he stood still every now and then and got a coolant top-up every few hundred vorns.”

The Barkeep chattered agitatedly as Drift approached the CMO’s unconscious frame, noting the best possible escape routes to use if he woke up and lashed out. Ratchet _did_ look exhausted; the lines which gave character to his handsome face were deeper than they had been a few decaorns ago, and even in the dim after-hours light of the bar his armour looked dull.

Drift cocked his head to the side and watched the Medic’s biolights pulse sluggishly while he contemplated the safest way to wake the unconscious mech. He wanted to get Ratchet on his pedes and out the door with a minimum of fuss. The Swordsmech rubbed at a stiff tensor cable in his neck as he weighed up the options available.

_Rodimus owes me big time for this._

Eventually figuring his reflexes would be more than a match for anything the older mech could throw at him, Drift decided to keep this casual. Ratchet was already going to be embarrassed as all slag _without_ Drift going out of his way to make things worse for him. Bracing himself, the Swordsmech laid one strong hand on the Medic’s warm forearm plating and took a cheerful, friendly approach to the problem.

“Come on, Ratchet. That doesn’t look comfortable.” When he got a vague mumble instead of a fist to the face, Drift took it as a good sign and continued. “Besides, you’re ruining the after-hours vibe. Let’s get you home so you can sleep this off.”

Slowly, a red-and-white helm rose from where it had been pillowed on the elbow joint of one arm. Ratchet tried to online his optics, failed, tried again and achieved a partial success. Gazing groggily up at Drift with flickering optics he took great care to enunciate two words with perfect clarity.

“Slag. Off.”

Ratchet then dropped his helm back to its previous resting place with a painful-sounding _thunk_.

_Well. That went better than I thought it would._

“Come on Ratchet.” Drift said, ducking down to pull the Medic’s free arm up and tuck it over his shoulders, threading it easily between red pauldrons. “Let’s get you home. You’ll recharge much better on your berth.”

Drift suppressed a grin at the expression on Swerve’s faceplates as the other mech watched him blithely haul the dangerous Medic to his pedes and slip an arm around the study white waist. He looked like he was expecting Ratchet to wake up decapitate them both.

Thinking longingly of collapsing into his own berth, Drift began the slow process of lugging Ratchet’s unresponsive frame towards the door. The Barkeep darted ahead, activating the opening mechanism and keeping it open for Drift as he manoeuvred Ratchet across the room.

“Thanks, Swerve.” Drift gasped.

Ratchet was a lot heavier than he looked. _How_ was he going to get the Medic all the way across the Lost Light to his habsuite?!

“Don’t mention it.” Swerve’s visor flickered. “Look after him, ok?”

With that, Swerve shut the door on the Speedster and his cargo of overcharged Chief Medical Officer, locking it firmly in Drift’s face before he could demand to know what he was on about.

Grumbling under his breath, Drift began the slow march towards Ratchet’s habsuite with the Medic’s pedes dragging unhelpfully on the ground behind them. Partway there, Ratchet finally registered the change in position and came online again.

“Thought I tol’ y’ t’ slagoff.” Ratchet mumbled at the floor, struggling uncoordinatedly against Drift’s hold. “Lemme go. C’n walk”

“Don’t be stupid.” Drift said, resolutely towing the Medic along despite how his back and shoulder struts screamed at him about the uneven load. “You can barely speak coherently. I don’t think you’d be able to make it from here to the end of the corridor without bouncing off the wall.”

“Could _too_.” The Medic intensified his efforts and finally managed to get his pedes to behave and take some of his weight off Drift’s complaining shoulder. “Bin gettin’ ovr-charg’d since b’fore you wer’ sparked. Know wha’ ‘m doin’.”

Drift’s spark contracted painfully, his annoyance fading a little as the words triggered a small cascade of memory files from recent weeks. His processor found a pattern in the memories that he didn’t like at all. Ratchet’s experience with being overcharged didn’t make this situation any more excusable.

At least it was easier to lug Ratchet along now that he was talking some of his own weight. Unfortunately his continued attempts to escape Drift’s hold more than compensated for it.

“What _are_ you doing?” Drift asked.

He’d chosen his words carefully, deliberately giving Ratchet an easy way out if he didn’t want to discuss whatever was bothering him. It wasn’t like Drift was in the shape to have a spark-to-spark right now either, but he wanted to give Ratchet the option.

Although, he had to admit that Unicron would throw a tea party before Ratchet _ever_ willingly confided in anyone, let alone Drift.

The question seemed to penetrate Ratchet’s overcharged haze more effectively than anything so far. He stiffened, jerking away from Drift so roughly that he almost sent both of them crashing to the deck. Drift recovered better than the Mdic, who fetched up against a wall before he could steady himself.

Bleary teal optics glared at the Swordsmech from under a scratched white chevron, a look that would have sent the entire crew of the Lost Light and half the former Decepticon army scurrying for cover had the Medic been sober and holding a wrench.

“‘S none o’ your business, kid.” Despite the fact that he needed the wall to remain upright Ratchet sounded like he was sobering up.

Already tired and angry with Rodimus for putting him in this situation, Drift lost his temper at the nearest available target.

“That’s a pile of rusted scrap, Ratchet!” Drift snarled, advancing on the Medic. “In case you’re forgotten, I’m the _Third in Command_. When you decided to drink yourself into a blackout tonight you _made_ whatever this is my business. This kind of behaviour _is not_ _like you_. Slag, even _Swerve_ noticed that something’s wrong! I swear on my Spark if you don’t give me a _damn good reason_ for your behaviour I’m throwing you in the brig and you can discuss it with Rodimus in the morning.”

Ratchet appeared completely unaffected by Drift’s tirade right up until point where he flinched violently at the sound of Rodimus’ designation.

_What?!_

Something about Ratchet’s frame language, the way he looked away and refused to meet Drift’s optics combined with the suddenly controlled EM field and dulled biolighting to set off alarm bells in Drift’s processor. The anger flooding through him lurched and changed directions. Had the Captain done something unforgivable to Ratchet?  His reaction certainly seemed to say so.

A desire to protect this wonderful mech who went toepiece-to-toepiece with Death without hesitating and how quailed at the mere mention of the Captaion’s name roared to life in Drift’s spark, willingly accompanied by all the violence of his Decepticon past. In that moment he would have quite happily dismembered _anyone_ who hurt Ratchet and damn the consequences.

“Ratchet; if you don’t tell me what happened I’m going to find Rodimus and ask him to explain. And I _won’t_ be asking.” Engine growling to emphasise the threat his words, Drift stepped right up into Ratchet’s personal space.

The Medic’s EM field was held so close to his plating that it was almost non-existent, but Drift caught traces of distress and a sour darkness which only served to increase his determination to uncover the truth.

“Drift, don’t.” Ratchet sounded exhausted.

He was still refusing to look at Drift. Instead, his optics were fixed on the end of the corridor as if begging Primus for _someone_ to come along and interrupt the confrontation. Eventually Ratchet surrendered, the fight going out of him.

“Open the Command Regs and look up Medical Code 318-Alpha-6.”

Glad to _finally_ be getting somewhere Drift did as he was asked, puzzlement melting into comprehension as he processed the relevant data.

“What? That slagger could have asked me. There was no need for him to bother you!” Drift was outraged.

Given his libido under normal circumstances, during his heat Rodimus probably would have fragged Ratchet until the older mech went into stasis and then _kept_ _going_.

As soon has he got Ratchet safely into his berth, Drift was going to hunt down the Captain and feed him his own spoiler.

“Other way ‘round, kid.” Ratchet said, rubbing the base of his chevron.

 _Oh_.

Ratchet looked vaguely amused at the expression on Drift’s face when the Speedster _finally_ wrapped his processor around what had just been said.

It certainly took him a lot longer than it should have done.

“Was he _seriously_ that bad? Uh, you, I, um, you could have asked me. I-I wouldn’t have minded.” Drift stammered.

He really didn’t have the right words to say just how much he _wouldn’_ t have minded. Frag, either of them going into heat was probably the _only_ way he’d ever get a chance with Ratchet! And Rodimus knew all about his long-standing infatuation with the CMO as well. He’d been shoving them together from the moment Drift had first confided in him. See: The number of errands he’d had to run to the Medbay recently.

_Oh I’m going to KILL him._

The Medic was shaking his head with a strange, bitter expression on his faceplates.

“No need for that, he got the job done.” Ratchet’s optics roamed, looking everywhere _except_ at Drift.

“Oh.” Drift searched for a suitable change of subject and couldn’t find one. “So, the sparkling . . . ?”

“The _last_ thing we need on this ship is a miniature Rodimus running around.” Ratchet’s EM field was sucked in tight to his frame and his faceplates went professionally neutral, optics settling on a point somewhere over Drift’s right shoulder. “Any medic is more than capable of performing the procedure on themselves.”

Drift didn’t know how he was supposed to react. Ratchet’s expression gave no clues about the right thing to say, so he went with the first thing that popped into his tired processor.

“I always kinda thought any sparkling of yours would be really cute, actually.” The Swordsmech aimed his most charmingly innocent smile at Ratchet, nervously rubbing one of his audial flares. The stupid things were _tingling_ all of a sudden. “Maybe next time? You know, after we find the Knights and things have settled down a bit?”

That had been the _wrong_ thing to say.

Ratchet _finally_ met his optics and the look on his faceplates froze the energon in Drift’s lines.

The Medic looked utterly _destroyed_.

“Did Rodimus put you up to this?” All trace of the overcharged slurring was now gone from Ratchet’s vocaliser, replaced with an icy rage and betrayal the likes of which Drift had never heard from him before. “Or was your duty shift _really_ so boring you felt that mocking me was a good way to liven it up? Well _good_ for you. You’ve had your fun, now _leave me the fuck alone_ or you’ll never set a pede in the Medbay without fear again!”

Drift gaped, blindsided by the verbal onslaught and the fact that Ratchet had employed an alien expletive for extra contempt.

_What the slag?!_

He was too stunned to react as Ratchet shoved him away and staggered off down the corridor. It wasn’t until he stumbled and nearly fell that Drift snapped out of his shocked stillness, leaping forward to catch the older mech before he hit the deck.

Ratchet tried to shrug him off mid-fall, which resulted in both of them landing on the floor in a confused tangle of limbs. Drift tried his best to subdue the thrashing Medic before he did either of them an injury

“Ratchet _please_ , he _didn’t_ -” Drift couldn’t make himself understood over the torrent of curses flooding from the Medic’s vocaliser, especially not as Ratchet was continuing to fight him through every inch of his attempts to untangle their appendages in a sensible manner.

A fist caught Drift in the side of the helm, sending a wave of dizziness and agonizing feedback through his audial flares.

“ _Dammit, Ratchet!_ ”

Running out of patience, Drift made shook off the effects of the punch and made thoroughly unscrupulous use of his superior fighting skills, pinning the Medic to the deck. As soon as he had a firm hold on the deceptively strong mech, Drift clamped a hand over Ratchet’s mouth to silence him.

“Look, you’re overcharged and obviously not thinking straight. I’ll forget that absolutely _ridiculous_ slag you just said if you tell me _why_ you said it.” Drift kept his vice low even though he badly wanted to shout some sense into Ratchet. “Otherwise I’m dragging you to the brig and leaving you there to sleep it off. And _you_ can be the one who explains it to Rodimus in the morning.”

Ratchet glared over the dark hand muzzling him, teal optics nearly incandescent with fury. Drift stared him down impassively, knowing that invoking the Captain’s name was a low blow but still silently pleading with the Medic to let someone in _just this once_.

After several tense klicks all the fight drained out of Ratchet. He went limp beneath Drift, optics dimming as the Speedster continued to wait for the violent reaction that wasn’t coming.

Drift cautiously removed his hand from Ratchet’s faceplates sat back on his heels, agonizingly aware of how compromising their positions were if anyone happened to walk down this particular corridor. Ratchet lying flat on his back on the floor with Drift kneeling over him; their chestplates and pelvic armour had been almost close enough to touch.

“You gonna let me up now?” Ratchet asked flatly.

“Gonna tell me what that was all about?” Drift demanded.

A flash of something acidic and cold flared in the Medic’s EM field before he yanked it back out of sensing range again, optics gone dull in faceplates absolutely devoid of anything resembling an expression.

Drift had seen that look before in the faceplates of mecha resigning themselves to death.

That settled it for Drift.

No matter how much of a Pitspawned Aft Ratchet was guaranteed to be, he didn’t think it safe to leave him alone tonight.

Drift was intimately familiar with the brief flicker of emotion he’d felt in Ratchet’s field. First thing tomorrow he’d weld the stubborn slagger to a wheelchair and roll him off to Rung. There was no way The Hatchet would deign to admit that he needed to talk to someone _now_ before he finished imploding.

“Not flat on my back on the floor.” Exhausted optics still managed an impressive approximation of Ratchet’s usual ‘You fragging idiot’ look.

“Fine.” Drift stood up easily, hauling Ratchet to his pedes before the Medic could complain and hustling him along. “My habsuite’s closer. We can talk there.”

“You _can’t_ be serious.” Ratchet struggled futilely against the firm grip Drift had on his upper arms.

“I am.” Pure determination kept Drift from losing his nerve as he towed the Medic along.

The stream of invective Ratchet indulged in was half-hearted at best by his usual standards; it was purely to save face. Physical escape attempts were pointless as Ratchet wasn’t a match for Drift in his current state and was more than smart enough to know it, but that didn’t mean that he would go quietly. Muttered cursing trailed the pair through the quiet night-cycle corridors of the Lost Light to the door of Drift’s habsuite.

Drift swiftly opened the door and shoved Ratchet inside; aiming the Medic at his couch and turning to make sure that the door closed and locked properly behind them. The last thing he needed right now was for someone to wander past and overhear something they shouldn’t through a partly-open door.

Primus only knew what trouble Whirl would cause if he caught wind of this!

“Alright, Ratchet. Spill it.” Drift turned and met Racthet’s baleful glare.

The older mech had refused to sit, choosing instead to stand right in the middle of Drift’s main room with his arms crossed over the scuffed glass of his chestplate. There was a special kind of defensive belligerence to him that Drift had never seen before.

Ratchet shouldn’t look like that, should _never_ have to know the emotions that would put that expression on a mech’s faceplates.

 _What the_ slag _went wrong?_

To keep from doing something unfortunate –either hugging Ratchet or decking him, the Swordsmech wasn’t sure which he wanted to do- Drift fisted his hands and rested them on top of his hip scabbards, meeting the older mech glare for glare as he remained stubbornly uncooperative.

“Don’t see how it’s any of your business.” Ratchet said defiantly, “318-Alpha-6 explicitly states that complete confi-“

“ _NOT THAT, DAMMIT!_ ” Drift interrupted, frustrated beyond belief.

He did _not_ want to hear about Rodimus and Ratchet. Not after the day he’d just had. And oh sweet Primus, _not_ after the things he’d told his best friend and Captain about his –inappropriate and in all likelihood unrequited- feelings for the older mech.

Ratchet stepped back a pace at the unexpected volume, biolighting flaring a swift pulse of halogen brightness. Cycling his vents and focusing on a calming mantra, the Swordsmech saw how the Medic’s exhausted optic had irised wide, so as to acquire more information about a potential threat.

_I’m sorry._

“Not . . . Not that.” Drift tried to put as much sincere apology into his voice as he could, throttling down his irritation and slowly moving his hands away from his scabbards, spreading them in mute appeal. “I don’t want to know. Seriously, Ratch’ I know that’s none of my business.”

 _But I wish it had been_.

“Then _what?_ ” Ratchet demanded truculently, blatantly warning Drift to back down. He was shifting his weight from pede to pede, optics fixed on the habsuite door behind Drift.

“That. . . that utter _slag_ about me making fun of you,” the Swordsmech’s vocaliser was threatening to glitch out on him. He advanced on Ratchet, forcing the other mech to move further from the door with each step.  “Where did you get the idea that I would _ever_ do something like that to you? Or that Rodimus would make me?”

Focusing on keeping his vocaliser from crackling, Drift’s speech was slowly rising in volume. He didn’t notice, continuing to drive the Medic backwards with an extremely Deadlock-like snarl instead of his normal friendly expression, pointed denta glittering in the light.

“I would never, _ever_ do _anything_ like that to you, Ratchet. _And he slagging well knows that_.” By now the wide-opticed medic was backed against the wall. This was extremely dangerous place for _anyone_ to put The Hatchet, but Drift kept going until their EM fields converged in a tense, crackling standoff. “What about you? I may have been a Decepticon but do you _actually_ think I’d _lie_ about something like that?!”

Betrayal, hurt and disappointment all warred with the outrage roaring through Drift, spilling out into his field where it sizzled and nipped at the older mech with little spits and flares of electrical discharge. Ratchet’s field was dense and difficult to read, not that Drift was even trying by this point. His optics locked on the haggard faceplates of the older mech, demanding an explanation.

A reaction.

 _Anything_ other than this absurd docility and that bewildered look he was getting.

This just wasn’t like Ratchet.

Not _his_ Ratchet.

 _But he’s_ not _mine_.

“What’s going _on_ with you?” The Swordsmech’s voice was lower now, pleading. He couldn’t stand this uncharacteristic passivity from the Medic. “And don’t you _dare_ say it’s nothing. It’s _not_ nothing. Something _is_ wrong and it’s so obvious even _Swerve_ is worried about you.”

Ratchet was clearly thinking something over. That little crease between his optic ridges was deeper and his optics cast wavering illumination on either side of his prominent olfactory housing as unreadable thoughts chased each other around his processor.

 _Slag it; I’ve got nothing to hide from him anyway_.

 “I can’t stand watching you do this to yourself.” With a deep invent, Drift chucked whatever pride he had out the airlock and openly pleaded. “Look, I-I know we’re not friends, but I’m asking you to _please_ let me help you.”

Ratchet’s expression was inscrutable. His EM field firmed against Drift’s, keeping him from picking up anything without being rude and going digging for it.

“You . . . meant that.” Ratchet finally broke his silence, voice low and rough. “About sparklings. And . . . Me.”

Drift nodded, meeting the Medic’s optics. He seemed to want some kind of verbal confirmation. Drift had to reset his vocaliser twice before he could force words out of it.

“Yeah. I did.” Primus, he sounded almost as hoarse as Ratchet!

“Why?” Ratchet sounded bewildered.

Engex, exhaustion and doubt finally put some cracks in the walls that kept the world at bay.

“Pit knows; I’m a grumpy old cuss who works too much. And Standard Medic frames aren’t all that much to look at, either.” A red hand waved vaguely, drawing attention to the aforementioned frame.  “Put it all together and I’m hardly an attractive prospect, kid. I’m probably the farthest thing you can get from ‘cute’ without getting a garbage dump in on the project. If this is pity or you feel like you owe me something; you don’t. You just . . . _don’t_ ”

The words hit Drift like one of Turmoil’s full-force punches to the chest. The way they were dragged from Ratchet’s vocaliser sounded like they hurt as much to say as they did to hear. How could he think such things about himself?!

“Anyone who pitied _you_ would have to be so glitched they couldn’t cycle their vents without being talked through it.” Drift’s voice as adamant as he freely borrowed an insult from one of Ratchet’s old Medbay tirades.

Carefully avoiding the dents he’d made earlier, Drift pulled the Medic into a gentle hug. He felt Ratchet’s EM field drawing back again, red-and-white armour clamping down reflexively under Drift’s hold. Despite the combined exhaustion of his shift and a delayed recharge cycle both creeping up on him, he tried to find the right words to try to show Ratchet how _wrong_ he was about himself.

“Ratchet, you’re one of the most _amazing_ mechs I’ve ever had the privilege of meeting. And I happen to _like_ your frame, so mute it.” He spoke directly into the Medic’s audio receiver; incredibly glad the other mech couldn’t see the heat creeping into his audial flares at having let _that_ little confession slip out.

“That other stuff isn’t everything you are and you’re _nowhere_ near as bad as you make out. I wish . . . I wish you could see what I do when I look at you.” Drift mumbled, cursing his increasingly sluggish processor. None of this was coming out right!

Ratchet shook his head, chevron scraping at Drift’s armour where it was tucked into the crook of the Speedster’s neck, but for once he didn’t say anything. The uneven rippling of the older mech’s EM field suggested that he was also fighting a losing battle with his frame’s desire to recharge.

_Probably too slagged to get his vocaliser working._

“You’re staying here tonight so I can keep an optic on you.” Drift said, steering Ratchet through into his berthroom.

The Swordsmech stoically locked down every single memory of times spent fantasising about this exact situation – _Ratchet here, in **his** berthroom_ \- relegating them to a triple-locked archive buried in the depths of his processor.

Exhaustion was catching up on them both and the highgrade was apparently still affecting Ratchet’s gyros. Drift had to remove his swords and put them in their racks one-handed, the other arm being required to keep the Medic upright.

He’d been intending to put Ratchet on his berth and recharge propped against the wall like he used to during the war, but the older mech stumbled just as they reached the berth. Trying to control Ratchet’s fall meant Drift got pulled down with him, ending up trapped with one of his arms underneath the Medic’s frame.

Any hope Drift had of getting Ratchet off his arm were dashed when he heard the unmistakeable sound of overtaxed systems forcibly cycling down into recharge.

Drift accepted his fate, determinedly ignoring the little flutterings in his spark caused by seeing Ratchet’s faceplates relaxing into something resembling a peaceful expression.

After wriggling into the most comfortable position he could find with one arm trapped, Drift carefully memorised every detail of the situation before he allowed himself to sink into recharge.


	5. Who Heals the Healer?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Awkward wake-up calls are awkward.  
> So are confessions of affection when the object of said affections has emotional walls taller than the pyramids of Giza -.-;

# CHAPTER FIVE – Who Heals The Healer?

Ratchet onlined slowly, crawling reluctantly up out of recharge to a familiar slew of notifiers on his HUD which told him that he’d gotten thoroughly overcharged the night before. Minor damage notices from several nonessential systems and superficial warnings from the armour structural integrity subsystems informed him that it had gotten a little rough at some point, too.

Hooo he couldn’t wait for the memory cache to catch up. It must have been pretty wild!

There was a warm frame curled against his front, but the lack of gunk on his thighs and the interfacing systems updates on his HUD readout meant that whoever else he was in berth with, they hadn’t interfaced.

Oh. So not _that_ kind of fun.

The frame under Ratchet’s arm felt familiar. The other mech’s armour curved in slightly more aerodynamic ways than the squared-off, reinforced plates of a standard Medic frame like Ratchet’s own build did.

Ugh, so his roommate had come to find him and dragged his overcharged aft back to the dorm before he could have any _real_ fun?

Ratchet would have to have a little _discussion_ with the glitch about that. Preferably after he’d dealt with the post-overcharge processor ache he could feel building in the delicate micro-connections of his brain module.

The weird smell in their room wasn’t helping, either. Cross-referencing his chemoreceptor reports with what databanks had already booted suggested it was the fumes of some kind of oxidised resin. Ratchet would have probably described it as ‘pleasantly aromatic’ if it wasn’t currently being flagged as a potential threat by his hyperactive atmospheric filtration system.

_Some slagger pranked the dorm airvents again. I am_ going _to kill them._

A semiconscious purr reached his audials, originating from the interfering fun-wrecking glitch he was dormed with for the vorn. The other Medic snuggled into his torso, tightening his arms around Ratchet’s waist. He could feel the top of the unrepentant fragger’s helm pressing up underneath his chin, which gave Ratchet an idea.

_Ruin my night, huh? Time for some payback._

Not bothering to online his optics, Ratchet extended his glossa and licked a long swipe down the central crest of his roommate’s helm, earning a startled noise and a blast of air from the other mech’s vents as he onlined in a rush.

“Good morning, Force’.” He said conversationally, deliberately licking the helm crest again. “I hope wrecking my night out was worth it.” _Lick. Lick._

_Aaand cue explosion of disgust; three . . . two . . ._

“Uh, I don’t know who ‘Force’ is, but your night out didn’t look like much fun.”

That didn’t sound like Force’.

_What?!_

Ratchet onlined his optics to find a medium-sized ball of red-and-white speedster with confused blue optics cuddling him instead of the slim search-and-rescue mech he’d been expecting.

The memory cache dump caught him completely unprepared, leaving Ratchet floundering in a sea of horror he tried –and failed- to hide. That wasn’t Forceps and this wasn’t his Med School dorm.

Or even his berth on the Lost Light, for that matter.

_Oh slag._

“Force. Forceps. Old Med School roommate who liked to cuddle but hated interfacing.” The medic explained, trying to find a decorous way out of the situation. “He, uh, the year we were roomed with each other he pushed the berths together and insisted that we both recharge on them. Dorm berths were kinda small, so it was actually a pretty good idea.”

“I see . . . I think.” Drift sounded dubious, cocking an optical ridge at Ratchet. “And the licking?”

“Helm crest was ticklish.” Ratchet said, feeling embarrassment wallop him like a hard fist to the fuel tank. Yes. He _had_ just licked Drift’s helm, hadn’t he. _Brilliant_. “When he slagged me off I’d wake him up by licking it, since he hated the mess.”

Drift just cycled his optics and kept looking at him, faceplates carefully neutral. Ratchet fidgeted, more uncomfortable with that steady regard than the arms still wrapped around his waist.

“It made sense at the time. And it _did_ work.” The Medic grumbled. “Slagger was just like you lot. _Never_ listened when someone tried to talk sense. You had to find other ways to get something through his cranial case.”

“Well, my crest isn’t all that sensitive so you’re out of luck there.” Drift flashed him a cheeky grin that stalled Ratchet’s vents for a moment. “My audial flares, though? They’re _full_ of sensors.” His expression changed suddenly, grin fading. “Wait, he hated interfacing?”

“Yup.” Ratchet had no idea where this was going.

“And you . . .” Drift didn’t seem to be able to finish that sentence.

Or look Ratchet in the face anymore.

Which was funny, when you considered the fact that they were currently cuddled up together in a pile of red-and -white armour plating on Drift’s berth and the only other place Drift could look was at Ratchet’s glass chestplate. Without really thinking about what he was doing, Ratchet shifted and began rubbing the armour of Drift’s upper back in soothing motions.

The younger mech seemed unusually warm, plating fluffing out slightly to let the air of his room circulate beneath to remove some of the excess heat from his internals. There was a fairly simple explanation for that, probably the same reason Ratchet was aware of his own utilitarian armour plating opening up to reduce his core temperature.

_He’s probably embarrassed as Pit, too._

“Completely the opposite, actually.” Ratchet said dryly, “My nickname at Med School was ‘The Party Ambulance’, if you can believe it.”

“Party Ambulance? _Seriously?_ ” Drift raised his optics to meet Ratchet’s again, expression definitely amused. “Well, I guess that whole ‘I’ve been doing this longer than you’ve been sparked’ thing _was_ a bit of a pointer.”

Those words broke the little bubble of wilful denial that Ratchet had been carefully maintaining. His hand froze in its absent-minded movements on Drift’s backplating, followed moments later by his entire frame locking up as reality crashed back over him.

Corrupted memory files which _still_ retained all the most painful and embarrassing events of the previous evening reared up and smashed through the fragile illusion of peace Ratchet been maintaining. They wrapped thick tentacles of acid around his processor and spark; _yanking_ at them, hard.

He couldn’t pull himself out of it. Couldn’t cut it off.

The weeks of poor recharge combined with his overcharge hangover to pile bad code strings one on top of the other, backing up until all Ratchet could feel was churning horror as ruthless memories closed in on him like a pack of starved turbofoxes.

So **this** is what it felt had like for Red Alert and Prowl whenever they glitched.

_Slag, I should have used the sedatives_

 A voice alternately calling his name and cursing like a human Drill Sergeant gave Ratchet something to hold on to, an external focus to counteract the impending glitch. Sweet, clear lines of auditory input laid a shining path for him to follow through the tangled maze of fragmented code chunks and back out into the dim lights and strange scent of Drift’s quarters.

When Ratchet made it back to the outside world he found that he had been moved to lie on his back; Drift was crouched over him much like he had been the previous night when they’d tussled in the corridor. This time, instead of being muzzled with a hand pressed over his lipplates, Ratchet could feel Drift holding his face in both strong hands and pressing the nasal bridges of their helms together. The Speedster was talking him out of the glitch before it became a full-blown crash. His EM Field was gentle, coaxing, trying to bring coherence from Ratchet’s own ragged projections.

_Where did he learn how to do this?_

“Ratchet?” Drift’s voice was soft. He could feel the gentle breeze of the other’s vents against his frame as he kept up his litany of insults and encouragement. “Are you with me? Slag, when was the last time you had a proper defrag cycle before last night, you stubborn old petrogoat? Come on, come back. Please, I _don’t_ want to have to explain this to First Aid.” The Speedster’s vocaliser crackled out briefly. “Oh you _would_ fragging well do that to me, wouldn’t you? Come on, keep venting; in and out just like that. I _swear_ Ratchet, if you crash on me now I’m going to set Bob loose in your quarters and tell him you’re hiding treats under your berth.”

Shoving his way past the last of the corrupted fragments of code which were scratching at his consciousness with hooked spines, Ratchet found the commands to online his optics. It took several attempts to execute them properly, but he finally got them functioning only to find that the world had become Earth’s sky. It was an ocean of blue light he willingly basked in while piecing himself together and reaching for some form of cognitive function.

Given what he had already established of the positioning of the frame pressed against his, the blue light could only be from Drift’s optics. Before Ratchet could bring his emotional walls back up between himself and the world, Drift’s EM field slid over his in a thoroughly distracting manner, communicating the Speedster’s transition from worry to joy. He let go of the Medic’s helm and shifted to press his faceplates into the Medic’s shoulder, laughing giddily with relief.

The Speedster was apparently _very_ happy he wouldn’t have to call First Aid to explain why the CMO had glitched himself into stasis in his quarters.

“Sorry kid. Haven’t exactly been recharging properly lately, as you guessed.” Ratchet said lamely.

He let the outer layers of his EM field mingle with Drift’s, communicating to the mech still laughing away atop him all the embarrassment and gratitude he couldn’t quite bring himself to vocalise. Drift sat up, still chuckling. He cocked an optical ridge down at Ratchet with a kind of exasperated fondness.

“If the memory of having your overcharged aft hauled out of Swerve’s and getting into a one-sided drunken brawl in the corridors sends you into a crash, I think it’s been a lot longer than just ‘lately’, Ratch.” Dark hands came back to gently grasp Ratchet’s faceplates when he tried to look away.

 “I wish you’d said something to me.” Drift continued to speak. The laughter seemed to have loosened his control over his vocaliser. “I mean, I know we’re not best friends or anything, I _do_ like you. I _don’t_ like to see you suffering and hurting because you push everyone away. I want to help you, i-if you’ll let me.”

Blindsided by Drift’s open admission of affection, Ratchet automatically reacted with his trademark sarcasm.

“I swear if you say _one_ word about my negative vibrations and the aura of this ship and I will _personally_ weld your aft to the wall.”

They glared at each other for several long klicks before the corner of Drift’s mouthplates twitched upwards. Ratchet snorted, feeling the thin dermal metal at the corner of his optics crinkle with genuine mirth for the first time in so long that he almost didn’t recognise the sensation.

Drift saw the Medic’s smirk and _beamed_ down at him, wearing the same glorious smile he’d given Ratchet before the screen of As The Kitchen Sinks. Seeing it from below made Drift look slightly silly. Ratchet felt a rare chuckle roll up from his chest, a sound which had Drift twisting his helm from side to side, aiming his prominent white audial flares at the source of the noise.

Perhaps it was the memories of Med School lingering in his sluggish, recharge-starved processors that were given fresh life by the release of laughter. Maybe he really _was_ losing the last threads of his sanity to the relentless grind of a loneliness he wasn’t willing to admit to himself.

Whatever it was, Ratchet acted impulsively for the first time in several millennia.

Before he could stop to think about what he was doing, Ratchet propped himself up on one elbow and reached for Drift with the other arm. He let his EM field flow out smoothly, filling it with silent gratitude he couldn’t find the words to express. Neatly catching the Speedster by the back of the neck, Ratchet pulled him down so that he could press the nosepieces of their helms together they way that had been earlier.

Well that was what he planned to do, anyway.

As he let himself be drawn down, Drift twisted at the last moment so that instead of their forehelms touching, his lipplates brushed across Ratchet’s.

The unexpected contact was sweet and infinitely gentle, drawing a startled noise from the Medic’s engine. Drift froze at the sound, drawing back slightly. Ratchet could feel the neck cables under his palm tense, the Speedster’s EM field going rough with apprehension. Drift’s armour clamped down, whole frame going still and Ratchet swore he could feel the mech practically vibrating with tension where he knelt over him.

Concluding that he’d undeniably lost his mind, Ratchet threw caution out of the airlock. He offlined his optics and returned the kiss, using exactly the same amount of pressure Drift had.

The Swordsmech made a breathless little sound, pressing back firmly and moulding his frame to Ratchet. His armour relaxed away from his frame again, ex-vents sending heated air over Ratchet’s frame. The Medic let Drift lead the kiss, unsure of boundaries and intent even as Drift’s EM field _danced_ against his own, filled with a dizzyingly intense amount of joy/ desire/ _yes_.

Ratchet could feel the frame above him warming, hear his own primary cooling fans activate somewhere over the enchantment Drift was weaving with lips and hands. One  grey hand had slid around to cradle the back of Ratchet’s helm, the other was currently tracing little circles over the glass of his chestplate. Drift was using his fingertips alone, as if any more contact would shatter them both.

Deliberately ignored the ache in his shoulder joint, Ratchet focused instead on the interplay of their lipplates and the feedback he was receiving from the hand on Drift’s helm. The Medic’s EM field unfurled slowly, his spark spinning faster under the motion of those dark fingers. His habitual caution with showing his true emotions eroding before the gentle, undemanding attention.

Identifying an abnormal increase in heat nearby, the hand on Drift’s helm went in search of the source. Red fingers coasted forward, palm cupping the Speedster’s cheek before searching for the warmth again, moving up  . . . and out.

Two fingers traced the pointed shape of one of Drift’s audial flares, the white metal warm under Ratchet’s touch. _This_ was the cause of that weird heat reading. Minute prickles of unexpected electrical discharge thrilled the Medic’s hands, something Drift had said earlier about his finials’ sensor density looping in the tiny portion of Ratchet’s processor that wasn’t overcome by a blissful daze.

The contact with his helm finial made Drift’s engine rev sharply. He gasped into Ratchet’s oral cavity, entire frame wriggling as he abandoned the kiss and pushed his helm into Ratchet’s hand.

“ _Nguh_. Do that again? _Please_.”

The low vocalisation had Ratchet bringing his optics back online, not entirely believing what he’d heard. Drift was pressing his finial insistently against the Medic’s hand, lipplates parted and optics offline, his faceplates scrunched into a look of absolute concentration that Ratchet found unexpectedly endearing.

“Sure thing.”

Ratchet repeated the caress, delicately outlining the white wing of Drift’s audial flare as little shocks of free charge arced between white and red metal. The Speedster hummed happily, quivering whenever a particularly strong spark jumped from Ratchet’s hand to his helm.

The metal beneath Ratchet’s fingertips was becoming almost unbearably warm but he was loathe to turn down the sensitivity of his hands, focusing instead on the expressions flickering across Drift’s faceplates and the little sounds he was making. By now their engines had picked up to a steady thrum which he dismissed as irrelevant background noise.

Carefully maintaining the pattern of gentle strokes he had established, Ratchet took his weight off the arm that was keeping him upright and sank back down so that his backplates were against the berth. He brought the newly freed hand up to the other side of Drift’s helm and dragged his fingers along the upper edges of both white finials, daring to risk fracturing their little island of calm if it would increase the blissful happiness he felt in Drift’s field,

The reaction was electrifying.

Drift’s mouth fell open in a gasp as his engine roared hard enough to vibrate through every point of contact his frame made with the Medic beneath him. His hips bucked in a single sharp motion before the Speedster regained control over his frame. He brought his optics back online to reveal a blaze of deep blue light, staring down at the Medic in open-mouthed incredulity while Ratchet grinned smugly up at him.

The slag-eating grin stayed in place as Ratchet deliberately ran his fingers back up to the points of Drift’s audial flares and stroked slowly down along the bottom edge.

Air whistled through Drift’s vents as he visibly fought with himself, the sound blending into a keen that was forced from between Decepticon-sharp denta. Charge crackled from the sensitive helm finials into the thin transformation seams of Ratchet’s hands. The Medic arched upwards involuntarily, frame blindly seeking to bring his spark closer to the source of delight flooding the EM field that was almost totally enmeshed with his own.

“Th-this has to be a dream.” Even with the static filling Drift’s vocalisations his words were perfectly comprehensible.  “There is no way you can _actually_ smile like that. It’s not physically possible for _anyone_ to smile like that.”

“Like what?” Ratchet’s voice was rough but it held nowhere near as much static as Drift’s. He felt quite proud of himself for that achievement.

Ratchet watched the expressions on Drift’s faceplates change between his hands as the younger mech make a decision. The Swordsmech removed a hand from where it was resting on the glass of Ratchet’s chestplate and placed it over the cover of the Medic’s hardline interfacing array in a bold gesture there was no possible way of misinterpreting.

Ratchet’s ventilation seized up and not even the threat of an imminent full-frame overheat could seem to get it functioning again.

“I could show you. I _want_ to show you.” Drift laughed shakily. “I-I’ve tried to show you what I feel, how much you mean t-to me, but I’m not very good at that kind of thing. And I couldn’t figure out if you honestly didn’t notice or were just pretending that you didn’t so you wouldn’t hurt my feelings.”

“Didn’t see because I didn’t think anyone would be looking at me that way, kid.” Ratchet fought down the urge to rub the helm finials that were still beneath his hands. The effect would be the exact opposite of what he intended in that moment. “I still don’t understand why you would.”

Drift’s optical ridges drew together, forming a straight line either side of the nosepiece of his helm.

“Let me show you?”

There was longing in the Speedster’s EM field. Longing and something else Ratchet deliberately didn’t try put a name to.

It was the same something he’d been ignoring within himself for quite some time.

Meeting the optics of the mech above him, Ratchet tried to speak and found that he couldn’t even force static from his vocaliser.

Cursing internally at the vagaries of his frame, he executed the action command which would open the cover of his hardline array instead of struggling with his unhelpful vocaliser.

The shock it sent through the Swordsmech when he felt the cover retract back into the armour of Ratchet’s torso showed clearly in frame and field.

Drift’s smile blossomed across his faceplates like a supernova.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, Drift didn't know his finials could do that ;)
> 
> One chapter left, and it's your patiently awaited Dratchet smut.


	6. Communication and Understanding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Last piece.  
> Please have your insulin standing by. I found this almost intolerably syrupy.  
> Also non-standard smut. Enjoy.

[ **Hardline Communication** ]

 **{** Concept with no direct translation **}**

 

# CHAPTER SIX –Communication and Understanding

Drift couldn’t believe that this was actually happening.

_This. . . This is real._

Ratchet was here, in his quarters, on his berth.

Lying there and looking up at him with that _smile_. That smile which transformed the Medic’s classically handsome face into something surely worn by a mischievous servant of Primus.

How could Ratchet _possibly_ think himself unattractive? No matter how he turned the concept around in his processors, Drift just couldn’t find any way for it to make sense.

Where the mech claimed old age, overwork and a bad temper Drift saw experience, wisdom, dedication and a bold self-confidence which some part of the Swordsmech frankly envied. While Ratchet could be extremely abrasive when he wanted to (and often when he didn’t) it was a refreshing change to the sycophancy that was rampant at all levels of the modern Decepticon hierarchy. And, Drift was forced to admit, also present to some extent within the Autobot command structure as well.

During his time in New Crystal City, Wing had spent entire orns patiently teaching Drift how to see the good in things, and _dammit_ he’d try to do the same for Ratchet. If he didn’t succeed, then Drift would just have to beat the stubborn old slagger over the helm until Ratchet would at least accept the things _Drift_ saw in him as the truth.

Especially if the Medic tried to get back at him by touching his audial flares again.

Whether Ratchet was aware of it or not, he had come dangerously close to reducing Drift to a quivering heap of overloading Speedster. He wasn’t sure if Ratchet really _truly_ comprehended just how sensitive his audial flares were. The Medic might have only thought they were ticklish.

_Well, he might have until he heard how loud he had my engine going._

It had been _sublime_.

Drift would do _anything_ for Ratchet; _let_ Ratchet do anything to him if it meant he would be touched like that again.

Even if it was only once.

What was more important though was showing Ratchet how –hmmm, how would the Medic put it? – ‘How faulty his assumptions are when it comes to himself’.

_I think that’s probably how he’d say it._

So Drift made his offer.

He wanted to show Ratchet what Drift had seen in him the first day they met, way back in Rodion with Orion Pax hovering and glaring daggers from the background. This wonderful, caring mech who went out of his way to help others deserved so much more from life than the endless grind of work, work, and more work. Ratchet was worth _so much more_ than an overcharged one-night stand or medical duty that Drift wasn’t sure how to put it into words.

Somehow, despite all his reasons for doing this he was _still_ nervous, stammering as he boldly put his hand over the cover of Ratchet’s main hardline array.

Drift had only hardlined a handful of times in his entire functioning. Once with Gasket when they’d both been sober enough to carry it out properly, a few times later on in New Crystal City.

As he clawed his way out of the gutters Drift had gathered that mecha generally viewed hardlining as a convenient, if moderately invasive way to quickly share information. But even at the lightest levels of connection, Drift considered hardlining to be infinitely more intimate than spike and valve interfacing could ever be.

The Speedster’s fuel pump knocked unevenly as he waited for a response.

It nearly stopped altogether when Ratchet nodded.

He felt the small patch of white armour shift beneath his palm, somehow pulling all moisture from his oral cavity as it recessed demurely and split to sink back into the surrounding plating. The Medic’s array of hardline sockets and connector jacks were exposed to his touch.

Drift’s spark accelerated, pulsing faster than it ever had in battle.

Actually, it was rather like how his spark had behaved on Messatine when he’d realised Ratchet intended to leave him on the medberth and go after Pharma on his own.

Drift tried to push everything he felt out into his EM field where the outer layers tangled shyly with Ratchet’s, backing the emotion up with the smile he felt spreading across his faceplates.

Something flickered in the Medic’s field, something deep and furtive which brought back the sense of _life_ that had been so achingly absent from it in recent weeks. Now Drift knew why it had vanished he was absolutely _determined_ to help this mech who gave so much of himself to others and never asked for anything in return.

It took several full cycles of his ventilation system for Drift to be certain he could move without shaking. Every embarrassing little detail he’d ever confessed to Rodimus about the mech beneath him tumbling through his processor in a horrifying cascade he quickly shoved aside to only have them replaced by full awareness of just where they were.

 _Oh Primus. I’m_ straddling _him._

His aft was firmly seated on Ratchet’s lower belly with all the comfortable ease of a lover or _amica endura;_ a position that assumed a level of familiarity they didn’t _actually_ have.

Drift thought about moving from his suddenly embarrassing spot atop Ratchet, but dismissed the idea when he realised that moving would make it that much easier for Ratchet to escape and go back to his slow, lonely disintegration. Except this time his walls of bluster and snark would be even stronger than before and not even Rung would be able to get inside.

This might be the only time anyone was ever allowed help the older mech.

_And if I slag this up he might never talk to me again. Wonderful. No pressure!_

Moving slowly and giving Ratchet every opportunity to decline, Drift allowed his own hardline array cover to shift aside while he reached down to the mech under him.

He handled Ratchet’s datacable as if it were as delicate as a newborn organic, which earned him a wry look complete with raised optical ridge. The sight made his spark sing. Drift suppressed a shudder as he brought the connector tip of Ratchet’s datacable up to his own array, fitting it into the relevant port with a soft ‘click’ and a sense of physical connection which was much like grasping hands.

He handled his own cable with less thoughtfulness, still being more careful than necessary when it came to plugging into Ratchet’s dataport. Again there was a ‘click’ and the physical sensation of a good, firm handhold as the connector tip snugged into the appropriate socket of the older mech’s hardline array.

_Ok; this is it._

Taking a deep invent, Drift offlined his optics and sent a polite ‘doorknock’ ping along the physical connection that had just been established between their frames and processors. He felt Ratchet’s frame twitch a little beneath his aft, before a warm gust from the medic’s ventilation system brushed over his leg armour.

It was very, very distracting.

 _Oh no. You’re_ not _going there right now, Drift. Processor on the job._

The reply to his hail was a little while in coming; Ratchet probably making sure had had all the medical information on their fellow crewmembers locked safely away behind firewalls where it wouldn’t be accidentally discovered.

It was a standard precaution. Accidents happened, and deleting information sucked slag even if your memory files _didn’t_ already have the kinds of large corrupted patches that Drift’s did. Although his were mainly from when he was in active addiction, the Speedster sometimes couldn’t tell if information had been lost because the damage to his memory core had spread, or if he’d deleted it in a hurry and forgotten to tag the deletion properly.

_Oh, there it is. Hi, Ratch!_

Drift’s response to the return ping was to slowly lower his first rank of firewalls, allowing his processor to communicate with Ratchet’s if they were using a direct commlink and a datafeed.

This still wasn’t exactly intimate by normal standards but Drift quickly found that he was glad to rigidly follow protocol. Behind the safety of his mid-level firewalls he frantically shunted several tingly little thoughts off to deletion queues. Ratchet didn’t need to know about _any_ of that!

Especially not as Drift felt the Medic’s own external firewalls coming down, deactivating in a beautiful, smooth tessellation that he openly admired as contact bloomed between them.

[ **A side benefit to being a Medic is the firewall enhancements.** ] Ratchet initiated conversation with a feeling of slightly sardonic amusement. [ **I’m no code specialist, but I can help you work on yours if you want.** ]

In the private areas of his processors Drift wanted to sing at the idea of Ratchet willingly hardlining with him again. The impulse joined all the naughty thoughts from the night before in the triply-locked folder of his memory archives.

[ **Thank you. I’d like that.** ] Drift was still astonished by how willingly Ratchet went out of his way to help when he didn’t have to, tagging that observation onto his reply. [ **I picked up bits here and there and while it all _works_ it’s not very. . . {** elegant/well-designed/sophisticated **}]**

[ **It’s what I do, kid.** ] Embarrassment, dissent and a firm insistence that Ratchet wasn’t doing particularly anything out of the ordinary came back with the words. [ **Helping people. It’s what I do. Even if your firewalls aren’t as well-designed as mine doesn’t mean they’re not effective. You’ve done pretty fragging well for yourself since I saw you in Rodion.** ]

Drift could feel his frame heating with pride and more than a little embarrassment at the unsolicited praise.

[ **If you don’t mind, I can check your mid-level firewalls for any major weaknesses now?** ]

Ratchet was stalling and they both knew it, but Drift couldn’t turn the opportunity down. Just the mere _idea_ of having Ratchet’s mind in closer contact with his own threatened to send little jolts of charge through his systems.

_Not good. Calm down or he’ll freak out and run before you get to the point of all this._

Cycling his vents nervously, Drift let his armour flex in an obvious external show of nerves.

[ **Sure. I haven’t hardlined much so I want to say sorry _now_ before I do something stupid and give you a processor-ache.** ]

Ratchet chuckled both mentally and physically, amusement crossing the hardline in a stream of warm data while his chest vibrated gently between Drift’s knees.

[ **Don’t worry; I’m not going to make the mistake of underestimating you.** ]

Drift couldn’t hide the warmth that statement filled his spark with, nor did he even try; simply offering it up without comment for the Medic’s inspection.

After a long moment of silence, Drift spoke across the hardline.

[ **Ok. I’m ready when you are.** ]

Slowly he felt Ratchet’s presence strengthen through the connection between them; moving with smooth professionalism to glide through the outermost layers of Drift’s mind until he encountered the coarse bulwark that constituted his mid-level firewalls.

The Speedster twitched, smothering a keen as Ratchet’s mental hands ran across his firewalls exactly like he was checking armour plating for scars, welds, rough patches and weaknesses. In essence, that was exactly what the Medic was doing. Testing and analysing, not pushing in an attempt to break them down. Some mecha interpreted every contact with their firewalls to be an assault, but not Drift.

[ **Easy kid, I’ll be done soon.** ]

Ratchet had thought his uncomfortable shifting and the little noise from his vocaliser was distress.

_Thank Primus for firewalls._

[ **Sorry, Ratchet.** ]

Drift was incredibly grateful that the truth of his reaction was hidden from the other mech. He distracted himself by stomping on inappropriate responses to the exam and any thought that was even _remotely_ related to interfacing.

 _Not the time._ So _not the time for that._

[ **Nothing to be sorry about.** ]

Ratchet’s mental presence withdrew until they were back to the politely conversational level of connection, leaving Drift with the mental equivalent of someone patting him on the shoulder to accompany his words.

[ **You’ve actually got some pretty good stuff there. If you want help refining some of it, come see me in Medbay when I’m on shift.** ]

[ **Thanks, I will.** ]

There was an awkward pause, the kind of silence that would be filled with fidgeting and pointlessly inspecting forearm plating for dents if they hadn’t been linked mind-to-mind. Half-seriously counting the klicks until Ratchet made an excuse and tried to flee, Drift decided to jump right on in before his mental timer ran down to zero.

He did NOT want to find out how accurate it was.

[ **And that’s why we’re here.** {here=in hardline connection}] Drift didn’t risk editing what he wanted to say in case he lost his nerve. [ **You’re amazing, Ratch, but you need to look after yourself. You help everyone else at the expense of yourself. You don’t even stop to think that sometimes you might need some help too.** ]

_Ok, here goes nothing._

[ **Uh. . .** **You mentioned Rodion before. My memory files from back then are patchy because of Syk and ‘boosters, but I never ever forgot this.** ]

Drift cued up an edited version of his memory of waking up to find himself on the medberth in Ratchet’s Dead End clinic. The older mech really _didn’t_ need to know that Drift had deliberately overdosed on ‘boosters, doing it where he _knew_ violent mecha would find him. Orion Pax had accidentally put a stop to what would have been a successful suicide and Drift had wanted to punch the Enforcer as soon as he’d seen him.

Drift cleaned the memory file up as best he could, focusing on all the impressions of the Medic –designation then unknown to him- and send it across the hardline.

While waiting for the inevitable rejection of his initial perception of Ratchet, Drift forced himself to accept that if this continued he was going to end up thoroughly incriminating himself in regards to how he felt about the older mech.

If he really wanted to convince Ratchet that the Medic was valuable and desirable as a _person_ and not the semi-mythical figure of ‘Autobot CMO Ratchet’, there was no way for Drift to hide his emotions.

_I think I can take him never talking to me again, so long as he stays around to not talk to me._

That bittersweet realisation engulfed Drift in a small landslide of memories he was powerless to stop. He didn’t even try, as they were all hidden behind the safety of his mid-level firewalls. If this went badly then these memories were all he would ever have of the brilliant, fiery, compassionate mech underneath him. Anyway, he could easily cut the replay stream whenever Ratchet finished figuring out how he was going to belittle himself in the face of that first memory from Rodion.

With that security in mind, Drift let himself get lost in his memories, remembering the warm pride he’d felt witnessing Ratchet in action at Delphi, the flutter in his spark when he sat next to Drift at Swerve’s and how he deliberately teased the Medic with over-the-top spiritual proclamations when he seemed to be having a bad day.

_Oh, Primus. I’m doomed._

Best of all was the look on those handsome faceplates when Ratchet had tried one of Drift’s badly-set Energon treats at the movie night. A close contender was expression Ratchet was just wearing when he’d nearly overloaded Drift by playing with his audials, or how his spark had _blazed_ when Ratchet kissed him back. . .

[ **That. . . You. . . _Drift_** ]

Oh SLAG.

Drift wanted to vanish into thin air.

 _Pit, even throwing up on myself in front of Dai Atlas_ and _Ultra Magnus would be less embarrassing than **this!**_

That memory cascade had consisted of _everything_ Drift had considered showing Ratchet, plus a few things he hadn’t.

He was so thoroughly inexperienced with hardline interaction he’d accidentally created a direct feed when sending Ratchet that edited memory file.

Ratchet had just seen every nanoklick of his memory flux.

 _Including_ how he felt about the Medic.

Pure mortification flooded through Drift. His optics snapped online so violently he felt some of the circuitry blow. Utterly horrified, he stared down into Ratchet’s unreadably bright gaze and tried to find the right words to salvage the situation without making the Medic retreat behind his emotional fortifications.

[ **Oh no. Oh Primus. I’m sorry. Ratchet I’m so sorry. I just wanted to help, show you what you look like from the outside. I didn’t mean to – to do that to you. I’m so, _so_ sorry.]**

A red hand came up to cup Drift’s faceplates, thumb brushing gently over the arch of a cheekstrut.

“[ **Stop rambling.** ]” Ratchet said aloud and simultaneously over the hardline.

The terse word choice and acerbic tone were completely at odds with the quality of the touch and what Drift could feel –what Ratchet was letting him feel- over the hardline.

Understanding for the slip layered over a base of pure, unadulterated affection directed towards the mech who’d made it.

Drift’s vents hitched at the strength of that affection. It was more that he’d ever hoped for. He wondered if Ratchet was aware of just _how much_ he was sending, or if he was overdoing it to make Drift feel better.

[ **It’s easy enough to do. The only ones who don’t do it every now and then are Mnemosurgeons and Special Ops.** ]

[ **Yeah, sure.** ] Drift couldn’t help the automatic scepticism.

[ **I’m serious, Drift.** ] Ratchet’s words were followed by a memory file. [ **Here. Take a look at that, would you?** ]

Drift put as much cynicism as he could into one raised optic ridge, which only earned him a smirk. Sighing through his vents, he opened the file and let it play.

Less than half way through the very short file he was pressing his forehelm into Ratchet’s glass chestplate, struggling to get his ventilation systems under control as he wheezed with laughter. That was _priceless_. Ratchet’s more restrained amusement and wicked delight at Drift’s reaction was plainly evident in both his EM field and the hardline connection.

[ **Don’t _ever_ tell anyone I showed you that. He’d have both our afts for paperweights.** ]

Ratchet was chuckling quietly again. Drift could feel the vibrations through every point of contact between their frames and he _revelled_ in it.

[ **No fear of that. Though I’m going to have one Pit of a hard time keeping a straight face whenever I see him now.** ] Finally getting his ventilations evened out again, Drift lifted his head and leaned forward to bring their forehelms together. [ **Um, did I get my point across, though? About you?** ]

[ **Yeah, I think you did.** ]

There was awe and wonder and a lingering doubt that was weakening steadily beneath the onslaught of the Medic’s continued analysis of the memories Drift had accidentally flung at him.

[ **Good. It was pointed out to me in New Crystal City that we are the worst at judging our own worth and character.** ] He sent a playful nudge over the hardline, trying to distract Ratchet before he could argue the point. [ **Like they say on Earth, you should seek a second opinion, Medic.** ]

[ **I should have seen that one coming.** ] Ratchet mock-growled, gently tweaking one of Drift’s audial flares.

Connected as they were, it was impossible for Drift hide what that touch, _Ratchet’s_ touch specifically, did to him.

Pleasure and desire combined so that Drift couldn’t control the level of feedback seeping along the hardline to the other mech. Ratchet’s optical inlets spun wide, brightening as he absorbed Drift’s expression along with his reaction. Wonder came back; wonder, reflexive denial and a hesitant desire to cause more of that reaction.

[ **You didn’t see _that_ coming, either?** ] Drift couldn’t resist asking, good-naturedly poking the Medic in the side.

He didn’t bother to hide his grin at the strange look on the faceplates of the mech below him.

[ **No.** ]

Ratchet laid his hand flat along Drift’s audial flare. Not moving; just touching.

Little prickles of electrical charge jumped between the sensor circuits in his finial and the Medic’s precision-engineered hands, balancing on the delicate line between _extremely_ _good_ and _ticklish_.

A terrible idea popped into Drift’s processors.

A terrible, hilarious idea that he just couldn’t resist.

This was in all likelihood going to be the only chance he ever got. So if all things were considered equal, Drift figured that using a horrifically cheesy line worthy of an obliterated-drunk Rodimus was _infinitely_ better than letting the opportunity slide past.

_If you know you’re going to frag up, you may as well do it properly. Right?_

 [ **I’d like to see _you_ coming.** ]

It was the most obvious possible double-entendre and Drift made it with deliberate mischief that didn’t completely mask the nervousness that threatened to choke him.

[ **That. Was _appalling_.** ] Ratchet said, his optics narrowing dangerously.

[ **I know.** ] Drift wasn’t entirely without remorse for the line, but he was close. [ **This ship is full of bad influences. I wouldn’t mind if you tried to counteract them.** ]

It wasn’t a frivolous, one-time offer even if he deliberately left Ratchet free to interpret it that way. Drift felt his spark threatening to explode from its chamber as the silence dragged on, fighting the urge to press into the hand that still warmed his audial flare.

[ **I still find it hard to believe that you’d want to, with me.** ]

[ **We’ve already established that, Ratch. The _real_ question here is do _you_ want to. . . with me.** ]

He could feel Ratchet fighting with himself. Drift watched the teal optics flicker while he waited for Ratchet’s answer to his question. He didn’t know what it would be, and the not-knowing was one of the more agonizing experiences of his life.

Just when Drift was certain it would be ‘No’, Ratchet’s optics brightened and focused on him again.

[ **Yeah. I think I do**.]

Drift shook at the feeling that accompanied those words across the hardline, optics dimming at the hand on his finial began to move in gentle patterns. Tilting his head slightly, Drift sought the Medic’s lipplates with his own. He brought both of his own hands up, one to Ratchet’s cheek and the other to brush the white chevron.

That got him a positively delicious response, Ratchet arching up unexpectedly and gasping a muffled expletive into Drift’s mouth. The retaliation was the return of both the Medic’s hands to Drift’s audial flares; tracing patterns on the metal while simultaneously feeding the intense pleasure being produced in the specialised instruments over the hardline and into Drift.

It was like nothing Drift had experienced before.

His core temperature skyrocketed, secondary cooling fans engaging while his armour flared to maximum extension.

The Medic’s lipplates tasted of copper and ozone, Drift overriding the urge to pant in order to get more of it. Ratchet seemed to approve, sturdy engine producing a lovely sound as it surged in time with the action of Drift’s glossa as he carefully explored the inside of Ratchet’s oral cavity.

Drift’s hand shifted from the white chevron, caressing neck cables and transformation seams, collecting little zaps of charge until he was once again drawing patterns with his fingertips on the glass chestplate he was _certain_ hid more sensitive diagnostic equipment as well as the Medic’s spark chamber.

He was careful to avoid the appearance of going after Ratchet’s spark, giving the central expanse no more or less attention than anywhere else. Sparkplay was too much too fast and Drift didn’t want to look like he was even _hinting_ for it.

Little arcs of charge jumped from his armour to Ratchet’s along every point of contact, little trails of lightning snaking around them. Drift could feel the energy prickling into his exposed protoform, it sent waves of lust through his frame as those talented hands continue to gently work his sensor-rich finials. His attempt to send the feeling back to the mech causing it was laughably clumsy.

Drift’s inexperience with hardline interfacing showed, but he more than made up for it by unintentionally adding the pure eroticism the act held for him and his undeniable attraction to the Medic to the physical ecstasy he transmitted through his cable and into Ratchet.

Ratchet’s response to this involuntary information was to groan aloud into Drift’s oral cavity and increase the pressure of his fingers, surrendering to the younger mech.

Drift’s engine hitched through a gear change then roared at the unrestrained lust in the Medic’s response. He sent another pulse of energy over the hardline, this one consisting of _exactly_ how he felt about Ratchet and the things his hands could do. For good measure he included his appreciation of Ratchet’s strong, capable frame and the warmth he felt for the deeply caring mech hidden behind his screen of grump and bluster.

Ratchet’s overload took them both by surprise.

Drift’s name exploded from the Medic’s vocaliser in a keen of startled bliss, energy surging like liquid lightning across the hardline and dancing between their frames. It slammed into Drift accompanied by a garbled mix of **{wonder/amazement/joy/affection}** that carried him into his own silent, gasping overload.

The Speedster’s backstruts arched uncontrollably, sending him upright to stare blankly at the ceiling as his engine strained near to redlining, the vibrations pulsating through their frames. The hardline cables unspooled to their maximum extension, pulled taut between the two overloading mechs.

Drift came back to himself still straddling Ratchet, aftershocks tingling freely along their connection as both engines slowed to a steady idle. The Medic’s hands were moving slowly up and down the outside of his thighs; seeking or giving reassurance, he wasn’t sure which.

His frametype allowed Drift to bring his core temperature back to normal faster than the older mech could. He stared wonderingly down at faceplates which had relaxed peacefully in a way he’d never seen before. Post-overload contentment looked _really_ good on Ratchet.

“Are you going to be ok, Ratch’?” Drift was worried; this had escalated far beyond what he’d intended and he wasn’t sure what they were supposed to do now.

He _really_ wanted to ask if ‘they’ would be ok, but he wasn’t even sure if there _was_ a ‘them’ to be ok.

Drift realised he’d broadcast his concerns down the wide-open hardline still connecting them when he felt hesitant affection that wasn’t his own introduce itself into his awareness.

“I think so.” Ratchet pulled him down to press their forehelms together, answering both questions with a single sentence.

“I think so.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried to talk Drift out of that line, I really did. This was a case where it would only work if I let them run and NOTHING I tried to divert them with worked. I'm sorry.

**Author's Note:**

> This is currently projected to be 4-5 chapters.  
> Oh: There is no special meaning behind that medical code name, it was just something that sounded like it fit.  
> ADDED 15/10/14:  
> Medical Code 318-Alpha-6: If a Crew-member enters heat and does not have someone they wish to spend it with, the Acting Captain or CMO must provide assistance to the affected Crew-member. Full confidentiality is required on the part of the Officer thus engaged. The CMO will provide appropriate medical assistance if the affected Crew-member does not wish to/is unable to carry the resulting proto-spark to term for any reason.


End file.
